TOWARDS A FIFTH ONTOLOGY FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE

Abstract

This paper argues that the conditions of the Anthropocene render the four ontologies described by Philippe Descola obsolete, and begins the search for a fifth ontology that speaks to the meaning of the arrival of the new epoch. The radically new dispensation destabilises all prior understandings of the human, of nature and of the relationship between the two. Before progress is possible, the Anthropocene must be correctly understood. The concept emerged in the year 2000 not as another term to describe the extent of human impact across the landscape, the environment or ecosystems, but as a new idea to capture a very recent change in the nature of human impact on the Earth as a total entity, activity of a kind and on a scale sufficient to shift the geological evolution of the planet itself. The emergence of humans as a force of nature represents a rupture in human history and in Earth history, and a shift in the ontological status of both humankind and the Earth. All previous ontological systems are Holocene ones.

The Earth can no longer be characterised, as it has been in environmental philosophy and post-humanism, as passive and fragile, as our victim; it is increasingly marked by angry, violent and uncontrollable behaviour, all of which destroys the conceit of human mastery. However, this emphatically does not mean that humans are powerless and that our agency can be reduced to the “agencies” of other creatures. A new ontology must grasp the primal Anthropocene fact that humankind is so powerful and so exceptional that it can knowingly change the geological trajectory of the Earth. The essence of the Anthropocene is not technological but lies in the fact that technological humans have shifted the Earth into a “no analogue state.”

A fifth ontology might begin from the reconfiguration of time implied when humans became a geological force, and as a result the novel way we must look into the future and reconsider the nature of the being of humans. If an ontology is the expression of the emotional orientation of the times, then the grounds of a fifth ontology can be found in the “attunement” of the millions of striking school students. The essential disposition appears to be that of dread.

Keywords:

• Anthropocene
• ontology
• Earth history
• Earth system
• climate change
• youth activism

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 This is undoubtedly a huge and complex subject worthy of a book in itself, but I would argue that criticisms of exploitation of nature that are rooted in modernity and even in naturalism include those of Rachel Carson, Paul Ehrlich, E.F. Schumacher, the Club of Rome, Herman Daly, Green parties and most mainstream environmental organisations.

2 For an extended argument, see Hamilton, Defiant Earth, ch. 1.

3 A point emphasised by one of the leading Earth System scientists examining the Anthropocene, Jan Zalasiewicz, who writes: “The Anthropocene is not about being able to detect human influence in stratigraphy, but reflects a change in the Earth system” (quoted in Hamilton, “Too Serious”). Work on reconciling geology with the Earth System science is just beginning (see Steffen et al., “Stratigraphic”).

4 Latour and Lenton also argue that using the idea of emergent properties – properties belonging to the whole but not to any of its parts and which “emerge” when the system reaches a certain state – is a “cop out” because it tries to join the parts up to make a whole.

5 It could be argued that there is no such thing as a force of nature. Volcanism, for example, is a process that occurs in nature whereby molten rock is ejected from the mantle to the surface, with each eruption depending on a variety of specific circumstances. So while there are many volcanic eruptions, one cannot point to a thing called volcanism. We use the term volcanism to describe the collective phenomenon. Human activity is a force of nature in the same way.

6 <radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pgK6D24BR7> minute 5:55.

7 Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’i follows this tradition. See Hamilton, Defiant Earth 48–49.

8 See, for example, Lenton et al.

9 This will do as an approximation, although it’s more complicated. For example, the totemism of Australian Indigenous people emerged in the Pleistocene, that is, over the 50,000 or so years after they arrived in Australia but before the arrival of the Holocene 10,000–12,000 years ago, and therefore took shape in very different climatic conditions (and with different biota and landscape). As far as I know, no one has studied how that totemism was modified as the climate stabilised in the Holocene, which must have brought about far-reaching changes in how Aboriginal people lived, along with evolution in the forms of totemism that governed their understanding of the cosmos and their role in it.

10 <www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-03/students-strike-around-the-country-for-climate-action/11077022>.

11 This is close to Heidegger’s notion of attunement. For a very helpful discussion, see Cowles 53–55.

12 <www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit>; <www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/25/our-house-is-on-fire-greta-thunberg16-urges-leaders-to-act-on-climate>; <www.democracynow.org/2018/12/13/you_are_stealing_our_future_greta>. She adds: “You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us I say we will never forgive you.”

13 A fifth ontology will not deprive humans of their extraordinary agency by blurring it into the “agency” of other living things as a way of dethroning anthropocentrism (Donna Haraway). Nor will it abolish our agency by arguing that humans only imagine they have agency but in fact behave according to the dictates of the systems in which they operate (as in Peter Haff’s technosphere).